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Press release from RaceRunning Camp & Cup 2019

Added 07-08-2019

The last race is run, and the last medals have been given at Frederiksberg Stadium.

We are now looking back on the greatest event in the history of

RaceRunning. 116 athletes representing 17 countries have been together for one week – a week where we can celebrate 18 new world records. The days have been filled with international knowledge sharing and time together. Athletes and coaches have been exchanging experience and knowledge about training with a

RaceRunner. But most importantly: the athletes have competing in every discipline of the sport, from 40m to 5.000m.

RaceRunning is still a parasport discipline in an ongoing development, and the competition and the training camp at Frederiksberg Stadium is the annual peak of the sport. This is where athletes from around the world get together and makes the ground for developing the sport. The competition at Frederiksberg is the place, where new and experienced athletes gather together for joint training and networking. And where new athletes makes their introduction to the act of competing.

In order to participate, the athletes must have a reduced leg function. In addition, some athletes might have other impairments – a blind girl was participating this year, for instance. If needed, athletes with considerable challenged are permitted to be accompanied by an assistant. As for the case of a blind athlete, the assistant will run next to the athlete and guide her to keeping the right track.

The national coach, Leif Nielsen, is pleased with the achievements of the Danish athletes: “The form is quite good, and we have four months to do the last finish, before the World Cup in Dubai”.

Mansoor Siddiqi, the chairman of the competition and of Parasport Frederiksberg, is genuinely delighted that the arrangement this year has been so successful: “Every year we put a lot of effort in preparing the camp and cup, and optimizing the organization. This year, we’ve been supported by volunteers from The Danish Federation on Ageing (Ældresagen) at Frederiksberg – this has been a reinforcement”, Siddiqi says. For the volunteers it has been a great experience. One of them said: “Watching athletes with this scope of challenges fight for their sport – it makes you humble.”

RaceRunning Camp & Cup is expanding every year, and apart from an increase in the number of participants, we also see an increase in the quality of the sport. Mansoor Siddiqi is looking forward to next year’s competition, and he already started evaluating the potential details that could get fine-tuned: “Moving the opening ceremony to Wednesday was a good idea. The physical surroundings becomes too narrow, when we’re getting more and more people. The pressure on accommodation increases, and the running tracks are crowded”, Siddiqi says.

The organizational preparations prior to the competition are immense. Invitations, registrations, engagements with local schools, volunteers, officials, transport, catering. Mansoor is hoping to be able to hand over some of this work in the 4 months prior to next year’s competition to a student, so that he’s able to focus on developing the sport, and to reach the goal: to have RaceRunning acknowledged as a discipline for the Paralympic Games in Paris in 2024.

We are delighted! And for a lot of reasons. The weather has been great. The food has been plentiful and delicious. The quality of our livestream has been excellent. But most importantly: the sporting events have been top notch – during training as well as the competition with all the world records.